It’s On: Microsoft Azure Vs. Amazon Web Services

It’s On: Microsoft Azure Vs. Amazon Web Services

Competition is stiff between leading public cloud services Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS. But which has the best capabilities? The best coverage? Should you consider using both together?

Clearly, choosing one over the other will depend on your needs and workloads. However, there are some factors to consider.

Both AWS and Microsoft Azure offer similar capabilities in terms of compute, storage and networking and share features of a public cloud: self-service and instant provisioning, autoscaling, security, compliance and identify management features.

AWS is viewed as having enormous breadth and depth, as well as openness and flexibility. However, one downside to AWS is its scale. Navigating the large number of features can seem overwhelmingly complex.

Advantages of Azure are Mircosoft’s willingness to embrace a hybrid cloud strategy and the benefits of on-premise private clouds. In addition, Azure links well with key Microsoft on-premise systems such as Windows Server, System Center and Active Directory. While both AWS and Azure have PaaS capabilities, this is a particular strength of Microsoft’s.

For enterprises already running Microsoft Windows Server, SQL or any other Microsoft Solution, Azure is an ideal cloud platform as it’s already baked into Microsoft’s offerings.

In terms of price, AWS provides a price calculator here, as does Microsoft. here. For a side-by-side comparison of features and capabilities, view this chart.